PseudoDoppelganger
by sadistic dreamkiller
Summary: Two years after Sasuke's eternal slumber, confessions spill out in unwanted ways. "You're messing with me.""I'm not." SaiSaku


Bridged. That's all I can say. Mwahahahaha! Yeah, yeah, you know a SaiSaku popping out of me would be a bit weird, but you can't blame me. Meh, I might be even doing a SasuHina (OMG, WHAT?), so this would be far more normal, 'kay?

Uhm, Sasuke is dead here. And the time setting is early morning, that's all. And oh, yeah, this chap's dedicated to someone I don't think is on FF, but is on DA.

* * *

**Pseudo-Doppelganger**

Oneshot: for Arriku-sama

"_Do you even know the meaning of emptiness?"_

* * *

"Hey, why don't we try to see Kakashi-sensei's face again?"

A pink-haired chuunin looked over her shoulder at him with a raised eyebrow, before letting go a kick which the blonde ducked. "Say what?"

"His face, you know it! We tried it back then with Sasuke, remember?"

Sakura cringed inwardly, not because of the memory, but because Naruto was at it again. He was bringing up things that they did before and was forcing them to try it once more, with Sai instead of Sasuke. She wasn't insensitive enough to not realize that their other teammate was getting affected by this behavior. She tried to block the roundhouse he suddenly gave her, which sent her skidding back a few paces. They were doing taijutsu practice, with Sai watching from afar.

"Why don't you shut your yap, just for a teeny bit, Naruto?" she said, hoping that he would catch the hidden message she was trying to get through to him. He didn't.

"But it would be so much fun! Don't you remember how–"

"Naruto, shut up," she hissed, looking over cautiously to their raven-haired teammate. Bad mistake, and she ended up blasted into the air by a powerful uppercut.

"Sakura-chan, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it!"

The blonde panicked, not expecting her lack of reaction to the punch, and was waiting with open arms, ready to catch her as she plummeted back to the ground. She gritted her teeth and righted herself in midair, then, right before she was caught, used the momentum of her fall to land a shattering punch on Naruto.

One broken nose fixed and two front teeth repaired later, Sakura sat back and sighed, and leaning against a tree, shook her head at the wincing Naruto. He deserved it, commenting something like that. Sai was human as well, albeit with a huge lack of emotions he had seemingly started learning. One was anger, which it appeared as if she was the only who noticed. Well, she couldn't help it, since she had started warming up to the emotionless block of blankness.

It was every time that Naruto gave a remark, whether it be if Sai looked so much like Sasuke, or like what he mentioned moments ago, that Sai take the place of the Uchiha in happenings they did before. That was the past, and the loud-mouthed Naruto was still starting to slowly heal the wound Sasuke left him. As for her, admit it or not, she had begun moving on.

"You're a disgrace in being a guy, you know that?" asked the raiven-haired artist, who was sitting near his two teammates. He was folding a piece of paper into something still undeterminable.

"SAY WHAT?" demanded Naruto, ready to smack him.

"You may be a dickhead, but you act like you have no dick."

Naruto lunged at Sai. Sai tried to dodge but failed. Sakura let go two of her most powerful punches. In short, both of them got pwned by the raging temper of their teammate, mainly because of the vulgar tongue of the artist, and the denseness of the loud-mouth not seeing that the comment was made to provoke. Another reason was that she decided she show them that it was irritating. A few minutes later, she was healing the grumbling two, and she was rubbing it in their faces that they better start maturing before she decides to beat them up some more.

"It's really cold today," she commented, finally wiping away the last growing bruise on Sai's jaw.

"Sasuke's got his fire juts–"

Naruto was cut off by an intense glare from his pink-haired teammate. Seriously, he might just stop if only offered ramen. Her fingers were still holding Sai's face, and even the slightest movement, being the medic nin she was, she knew he had tightened his jaw.

He got what she wanted to say, since he stopped, but he was giving her a measuring look, as if trying to challenge her in something. There was tension between them all, prickling in the cool air of the early morning.

"Yo!"

All three heads immediately whipped around to face the masked jounin, gold, ebony, and cherry hair following the movement, as their eyes met Kakashi holding up a hand in a usual greeting, the other holding the infamous Icha Icha book.

"Hm… seems you three have a problem," he said, when none returned the greeting, or even commented on his being early. The stares he received were obviously irritated ones, especially that of the medic. "So, you guys up to training?"

"I'm done for now. The hag broke my nose again," remarked Sai coldly, brushing away Sakura's hands and pushing himself off the ground. He walked away leaving the his two teammates gaping at his retreating back as he sauntered off, not once looking back at them. The silver-haired jounin merely gave a glance, then returned back to his book.

"What's _his_ problem?" asked Naruto. There was acid in his tone, betraying that he knew the reason and was just pushing it in.

Sakura looked away. There was no point in arguing with her best friend. From where she was, where Sai had left her, she could see the piece of paper that he had been folding. A cherry blossom.

"Hey, Sakura! Where are you going? Hey!"

She had stood up and rushed in the direction where Sai had gone, waving her hand in an apology to her teammate and sensei, before letting her feet guide her wherever she supposed her stoic teammate had gone. Naruto was about to run after her, but gloved hand stopped him, making him look questioningly at the single dark eye, crinkled in a smile.

"She's run after that emotionless bastard!" he said, looking even more confused.

As for Kakashi, he knew that all Naruto's obnoxiousness only came from his over protectiveness of his friend. He didn't want her to get hurt like what happened with Sasuke, but now it was just time to let go. He wasn't blind to not see, and stopping Naruto would be a start. Maybe.

-----

"Sai! Sai, wait!"

He stopped, looking coldly over his shoulder at her. "What do you want? You're supposed to be training."

"No, it's… it's just that… I'm sorry for what Naruto was saying," she blurted out, looking pleadingly at him. He was still giving her that icy back-off glare that he had learned to use. He might be resembling the Uchiha prodigy, but there was something, there was _always_ something that could make her tell them apart.

"He… he's just not over Sasuke's death. I'm sorry, please, don't be mad at him," she added hopefully.

"What, and then after that you'd throw me a punch and say that I shouldn't forgive you?"

Sakura flinched at what he said. "No, not like that. Sai, it's just that he's taking it hard now, you should understand him."

"Oh, and let myself be trampled on? What the fuck do you think should I be doing?"

"Sai–"

"Enough with the bullshit Sak, it's not working."

Her green eyes were obviously holding back tears. It was pretty ironic that it was just about sunrise, and both of them were standing on a bridge with the cherry blossom trees nearing their season. So goddamn ironic.

"Thinking enough of what's happened?" he interrupted, slicing through her thoughts. His onyx gaze was unwavering, looking down at the petite kunoichi before him, currently as fragile as her name. She was biting her lower lip, obviously from the pain that he was verbally causing her.

"Just… just listen to me," she said, her fine brows knitted together.

He didn't answer, still giving her the cold treatment, but remaining there. Sakura took it as a yes, then held a hand to her forehead. Was it that hard?

"I haven't got all day so you should tell me whatever reason you have before I'm fed up with this," he said coldly.

"Naruto just couldn't let his death go! Can't you see that through your selfishness?"

Silence. She was starting to be riled up by his insensitivity.

"He looked at him as a brother, you should be able to know how he fucking feels!" she said through gritted teeth, face red from held-back emotion.

"I don't fucking care!" he retorted, raising a hand, supposedly to hit her in his own growing anger, but clenched it instead, lowering it to his side.

"Why don't you care about what others think?…!" she demanded, unfazed.

"How about how _I_ feel? Don't you think about it?"

"We do! We _do_ know about it, and that's why I try hard to make Naruto realize that!"

"Oh, so then I'm the big bad mean person here, am I? I'm the fucking fucked-up Konoha ninja who's being force to replace a last-minute-hero traitor!"

"You're just being too inconsiderate!"

"If you think I'm being inconsiderate then you should start looking at yourselves!"

"Why the fuck do you only think of how Naruto treats you? Why not look at others?…!"

"Maybe because I've been treated like this for two fucking years? You don't _know_ how it feels like trying to fill the gap of someone who you don't like, and take it from me, it sucks. It frigging sucks like a bitch!"

The last remark silenced Sakura, now holding the back of a hand against her mouth, sobbing as the tears started cascading down her face. His reaction wasn't what she expected.

"Go back to them, I have something to do," he said tersely, abruptly turning his back on her. He was already a few steps away when he stopped. Actually, she stopped him. She stopped him with her hand on his arm. To be precise, her hand just lightly holding on his arm.

"Let me go," he muttered darkly, loud enough for her to hear. He felt it rude to be just pulling away, no matter how easy it seemed. That aside, the emotions he had acquired were conflicting.

"I won't. It's just Naruto's side you heard," she said, her voice a bit muffled. To him she sounded… hurt.

"I already know how you think about me, so let go," he hissed, his onyx eyes narrowing at the path ahead of him. He was telling himself to just walk away, to leave her there and break that weak physical hold she has on him. But something else inside him dictated otherwise, that even if her touch was light, he couldn't just break free, because it was her. The one holding him was Sakura, and through that time, he knew he was feeling something deeper than friendship.

Instead of letting him go her hand tightened considerably, slightly pulling him backward. He refused to budge.

"You don't know…"

He shattered.

"I don't know?" he snapped, yanking his arm away and facing her tear-stained face. "I don't know how you feel about me? A coincidence of us looking alike tells a lot of things. Don't you think that it's obvious enough that you see _him_, you see Sasuke_-kun_ in me? Don't you know that I can see how you _look_ at me like I was him?"

"Fuck that Sai, I don't look at you because you _look_ like him, I look at you because you're you!"

Her words acted like a slap that silenced him, making him stare at her. This wouldn't be possible. Her liking him? The so-called Uchiha look-alike? He didn't think so, his eyes narrowing at the pink-haired kunoichi.

"You're messing with me."

"I'm not," she said, her voice barely a whisper, her emerald eyes pleading. The rays of the rising sun were emphasizing them, turning them into something like clear glass.

Another feeling that he could name fluttered in him. Hope?

"Proof."

He saw her blink, not breaking eye contact. Before he knew it her hands were tangled in his hair, his hands on her waist.

-----

"Tenzou, what do you think?" asked the silver-haired jounin, sitting comfortably on a branch with the captain beside him. He was peeking from the top of his orange book at the scene that had his interest. From the branch above, Yamato had used his wood jutsu on Naruto to keep him still and quiet, the blonde still squirming and trying to get free.

"Ah, Kakashi-senpai, you really shouldn't call me by that name," he said, smiling good-naturedly and looking back at what they were watching.

"Sorry, Yamato then," came the sheepish reply. "So, any opinion?"

"They look good together," he mused. "Reminds me of something in the last chapter of the book you lent me."

"Sure it does, that's where I got it," he replied with a meaningful grin through his mask. "And now this is the part where we should give them privacy."

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Bridged. That's all I can say. Mwahahahaha! Yeah, yeah, you know a SaiSaku popping out of me would be a bit weird, but you can't blame me. Meh, I might be even doing a SasuHina (OMG, WHAT?), so this would be far more normal, 'kay?

That was… well, stupid. O.O Utterly stupid of me, okay? I know, I know, for those who have read Torture Room (a SasuSaku oneshot), it's kinda similar, and you can't blame me since that's my style. And… and I have absolutely _no_ idea as to how to do fluff and stuff. Anyone wanna help me? Please? Please! Help me! –is desperate–

Oh, and yeah, feedback is nice. XD


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